The Return. Dinah McCall

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СКАЧАТЬ hounds bugled again. She shuddered. Her decision was made. She darted back inside the cave, returning moments later with the baby wrapped warm against the night, and started up the mountain toward the shadow of Pulpit Rock.

      She was wearing her last clean dress, an old blue denim, and had pulled a shawl around her shoulders, wrapping herself and the baby within. Despite her pain and weakness, she would rather face a witch than the likes of Jubal Blair.

      She moved through the trees like a small blue ghost, her movements stiff and awkward. The pain in her belly and the one between her legs was great, but they were nothing compared to her fear. Tree limbs grabbed at her hair and clothing, but she continued constantly upward. Brush often caught in her clothing, leaving tiny tears in the fabric and stinging scratches on her face. The baby was starting to squirm. Fancy knew she must be hungry. But there was no time to stop.

      A short while later, the hounds set up a terrible howl. It was then she knew they’d found the cave. If it was only hunters, they would be curious, but little else. But if it was Jubal…

      Unwilling to contemplate the consequences, she increased her pace, but it was taking a toll. The muscles in her body began to spasm, and each step she took was more torturous than the last. Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, something popped inside her belly. She paused, gasping for breath, then moaned as something warm began running down the insides of her legs.

      In a panic, she tried to get a fix on her location. To her relief, the silhouette of Pulpit Rock was just ahead, jutting out over the landscape like the point of an anvil. It wasn’t much farther. Fancy gritted her teeth and kept walking, but the pain and weakness were winning. Her head was beginning to swim, and there was a constant buzzing in her ears. Faintly she could hear the baby starting to cry, and she wanted to cry with her, but sound carried on the mountain. After the blood in the cave, the dogs would be crazy. Even if the hunters were innocent in their pursuit, they would be too far behind their own dogs to stop the carnage she knew would ensue.

      A long, loud bugle from one of the dogs suddenly sounded in the night. Fancy groaned. She knew, as well as she knew her own name, what that meant. The hounds had struck trail. They were on the move again. And they were coming after her.

      “God help me,” she whispered, and started to run.

       2

       T he campfire was small but hearty, the flames eating hungrily into the deadwood that Jubal had piled into a teepee shape before setting it ablaze. Now, minute bits of burning bark drifted up into the air along with a thin spiral of smoke, marking their place in the woods. The forest was fairly dry for this time of year, but the men had been woodsmen too long to be careless. The ground around the campfire was spacious and barren, and added to that, a heavy dew was falling. Hank passed the jug to his brother John just as one of the dogs sent up a howl that echoed throughout the forest.

      “That’s Little Lou!” John cried. “She’s struck trail.”

      Charles laughed. “So she did,” he said. “Now pass me the jug.”

      Jubal grinned. “Easy on the whiskey, boys. You don’t want to be runnin’ into any trees like Hank did last time.”

      Hank frowned. “Damn near put my eye out,” he muttered, as his father and brothers laughed, remembering the chaos that had erupted from the accident.

      They sat for a while longer, enjoying the heat from the fire and the warmth of whiskey in their bellies. It was Little Lou’s howl, followed by an answering chorus from the other hounds, that changed their perspective.

      Jubal stood abruptly. “Sounds promisin’, boys. Let’s go see what we’ve got.”

      Hank reached for his gun as John doused their fire. “Maybe it’s a painter, Pa.”

      The mountain term for panther was familiar to them all, and, to a man, they shivered as they followed their father’s lead.

      The pack was moving upward. Five minutes into the run, the muscles in Jubal’s legs began to burn, but he refused to acknowledge his pain. This would be his last winter to hunt. Age was doing something that his wife never could. It was slowing him down. But he kept on moving, refusing to show weakness in front of the men whom he’d sired. It wasn’t until Hank suddenly stopped that they all realized the howls of the dogs sounded fainter.

      “What the hell?” Charles muttered. “Where did they go?”

      Jubal stood with his head cocked to one side, trying to identify the familiarity of the sound. Suddenly he knew.

      “They’ve gone underground!” he yelled. “Hell’s fire, boys, they must be in a cave.”

      “It is a painter,” Hank cried.

      Jubal grinned. “Then let’s go kill us a cat.”

      They started off at a jog, still following the faint, but distinct, sounds of the pack.

      It was John who first saw the opening.

      “There!” he shouted, and they turned, holding their lanterns high and their guns at the ready as they moved inside.

      The dogs were everywhere, noses to the ground, running over the makeshift bed, digging in a dimly lit corner. The cacophony of their baying and howls was painful to the ear within the confines of the enclosure.

      “What the hell?” Jubal muttered, as he held his lantern high. “This ain’t no animal’s lair.”

      John shouted, calling down his dogs. Hank and Charles quickly did the same. The noise trickled down to a series of soft whines and yips, but it was enough that the men could make themselves heard.

      “Look here, Pa,” Hank said, pointing toward a satchel of clothes. Surprise colored his expression when he pulled out a woman’s dress. “Well, I’ll be danged. Women’s clothes.”

      Jubal’s expression darkened as he poked into the jumble of boxes with the barrel of his gun. Then he looked at Old Blue and Little Lou, who were digging frantically in a darkened area of the cave.

      “What the hell are those dogs digging at?” he muttered.

      John moved toward them, holding his lantern high, then suddenly cursed and took a step back.

      “There’s something buried here,” he yelled, pushing the dogs away from the hole.

      They all converged on the place, holding their lanterns and flashlights aloft. Charles knelt for a closer look, then turned away suddenly, gagging.

      “Shit,” he muttered, as he staggered to his feet. “There’s something bloody in there.”

      Jubal shoved them aside for a closer look. His nose twitched, but his belly stayed steady.

      “It ain’t nothing but some innards or somethin’,” he said. “Most likely whoever is stayin’ here just buried the guts of some game.”

      “That ain’t like no guts I ever saw,” John said. “There’s some bloody clothes here, too,” he said, and lifted them out with the barrel of his gun. “Hell. It’s another dress.” He dropped it back in the hole with a shudder and moved away, poking through a book that was lying on a block of wood that СКАЧАТЬ